Second was the initiation of a noon count. For a hundred years the prisoners had been counted at six in the morning, four in the afternoon, and nine at night. In his first month, I.M.White added a noon count to the other three and the prisoners were infuriated. Another hour locked in their cells each day was another hour of punishment. Another hour of recreation lost. The prisoners filed their complaints to I.M. White and later to his bosses in central office. This noon count, argued the lifers' president, was nothing but a way to keep them locked down an hour or two more each day. I.M. White responded by telling Champ that times were changing and the men were going to have to get used to the changes.
The third change was an attempt to begin a mandatory standing count. The memo said that any prisoner who wasn't standing by his door when the guard came around for each count would be issued a disciplinary misconduct. The guards had never complained before if a man was sitting on his bed or lying on the floor during a count as long as he could be seen. Why make him stand now? But the prisoners didn't go for this mandatory standing count, and the guards never pressed the issue.
After that came a notice that the varsity sports teams would no longer be traveling weekly to compete with other prisons. Due to budget cuts and security concerns, the softball, basketball, track and field and boxing teams would only travel three times a year.
But the change that most infuriated everyone, was having to stand in the rain, snow and bitter cold just to receive clean linen. At six-thirty in the morning every Wednesday, prisoners who wanted to exchange their sheets and towels for clean ones would have to walk down Turk's Street and stand in line outside the clothing exchange room until they made it to the door. When Champ asked I.M. White what was wrong with having the linen delivered to their cells the way it had always been done, the new Superintendent told him the new procedure was more efficient for the laundry workers. “Maybe so, but you're pissing off the whole population,” Champ said.
I.M. White didn't feel the threat. “Well, they'll just have to get used to it, Mr. Burnett. And, by the way, I hope you're training hard for your upcoming fight. I'm betting on you to win.”
“So am I,” Champ said, walking away and spitting on the ground when he was six feet up the sidewalk from the most arrogant black man he'd ever met.
Every one of these changes led to a mound of angry submissions to The Wire and while Oliver had been careful not to publish a single one, when the prisoner whose sobriquet was the “Greek” died in the license plate factory, he included a story about the tragedy on the front page of the March '84 issue. The author of the story had started out paying tribute to his friend but ended up lambasting the Department of Corrections. No one but the DOC was responsible for the three-inch thick bolt that came loose from a high-speed machine and burrowed through the Greek's forehead and into the back of his brain. The friend urged every reader who knew the Greek to write a letter to his family and encourage them to demand an investigation into the unsafe conditions inside the plant. He ended his tribute with a promise to write to the people at OSHA and demand an inspection of the prison industries plant. It was this last pledge that had Oliver sitting in the hot seat in the deputy superintendent's office.
“You lied to me, Priddy. Why'd you lie to me?”
Oliver was clueless. “Lied about what, Deputy Maroney?”
“When you started this newsletter project four years ago, you told me you wouldn't piss me off. You remember telling me that? You said, 'This newsletter will feature informative and entertaining news.' That's what you said, Priddy.” The deputy held a copy of the newsletter in his hand. “This article on Jerry Coustopoulos's death is anything but informative and entertaining! It's downright offensive and inflammatory!”
“It was supposed to be a tribute to the Greek, sir. I guess I didn't read it close enough before it was typed up. It won't happen again.”
Perpetually stooped and with the grace of a wading stork, Deputy Maroney shook his crooked finger in the air. “It won't happen again, Priddy, and here's why! From now on, I'm going to review the contents of every newsletter before it's distributed. I want a final draft of every issue on my desk by the third Friday of each month. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Good. That's all. And Priddy?”
“Sir?”
“Keep up the good work.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
A week later, two Black Panthers in a former life stood up at the lifers' monthly meeting and demanded to know why their articles on I.M. White and his new policies had been left out of the last two issues of The Wire. Brother Key-su swung his dreadlocks over his shoulders and said it was time they fired the editor and hired someone with a little backbone. The newsletter was too soft and too pro-administration. Oliver got up and said, “Anyone who wants my job can have it! But let me just tell you a couple of things first. I got my ass chewed out last month for printing that story on the Greek. Does anybody really think they're going to let us print stories that criticize them and get everyone hyped up? I'll gladly step aside if somebody thinks they can do a better job.”
Champ, who was knocked-down tired from going seven rounds in the gym that afternoon, recalled the information Oliver's boss had shared with him and he, in turn, had shared with Champ. Oliver's loyalty had given Champ time to think and surreptitiously plan a strategy for confronting the issues the prisoners were facing with this new administration. “Ain't nobody replacing nobody,” said Champ. “I have the same concerns you two Brothers have about all the shit that's going down. We got to talk about it, but we got to find another way of doing it than through that newsletter. Key-su, how about you and the other Brother seeing me right after this meeting? All right. That's the end of that. Mr. Secretary, what's the next item of business?”
chapter seven
THE APRIL, 1984, ISSUE of The Wire paid homage to the one hundred and forty-two graduates who were scheduled to march down the aisle of the auditorium the first Saturday evening in June, in that grand old tradition known as graduation:
“SPRING GRADUATION COMING TO RIVERVIEW”
by Oliver Priddy
Next month the auditorium at Riverview will transform itself into hallowed grounds for one evening. One hundred and forty-two graduates will march down the aisles to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance” and be awarded their just deserts for years of hard work and dedication. Forty-nine will receive high school diplomas while their homeroom teacher, Ms. Rhoda Cherry, will receive a year's supply of aspirin to treat the chronic headaches these brothers gave her. This year's class valedictorian is Junior Thompson, who scored a whopping 257 on his exams. Junior, you're the man! Junior will be starting classes this fall in the University program. We wish him continued success!
Another distinguished member of our GED graduates is also our state heavyweight boxing champion and president of the lifers' association, Brother Theodore “Champ” Burnett. For six long years, Champ kept his tenacity to learn as sharp as he keeps his punches. In addition to receiving his well-earned diploma, Champ will be honored with “Student of the Year” accolades. Congratulations, Champ!
Twelve proud barbers will march down the aisle with undoubtedly the best shaped heads in the building. How many of us guinea pigs paid the price for these brothers' success! How many high fades went too high before Chinaman finally got it right? And who among us isn't familiar with his favorite line: “Aw, Brother, don't worry about it. It'll grow back”? You all deserve a shout out. (Run those Kools in!)
The vocational school classes will send fifty-six graduates down the aisle this year: seven welders, eleven plumbers, fifteen auto mechanics, and twenty-three electronics technicians. The most noteworthy member of this entire group is Erie Sticks, who singlehandedly blew up more television sets and radios while trying to repair them than all the students combined in the history of the electronics class (and this statistic came directl
y from his instructor!). I know you all remember Sticks's patented line: 'The diodes must be bad!' Okay, Sticks! You've got your props now, baby!
Last to march across the stage will be the twenty-five new members of the University of Pittsburgh's alumni association. Thirteen men will receive Bachelor of Science degrees, and twelve, their Bachelor of Arts degrees. The valedictorian of this distinguished class is Gordon Welch, who is graduating with a 3.91 grade point average. A sincere and hearty congratulations to you, Brother Gordon! This year's keynote speaker will be Dr. B.J. Dallet, from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education.
Expected to be in attendance are Superintendent I.M. White, Deputy Maroney, the entire academic and vocational staff, including tutors and janitors, various counselors and clergy and a sea of University faculty members. Each graduate will be permitted to have two visitors in attendance.
On behalf of the three prisoner organizations, The Wire extends a warm and sincere congratulations to all of the 1984 graduates. And to you graduates who are going home soon, as the one and only Mr. Ray Charles would say, “Don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more. Hit the road, Jack!”
ON THAT DAY IN JUNE, in typical June weather, warm and bright, they swung open the auditorium doors, put away the dominoes and card tables, and poured boiling water on the gray cement floor. Scrubbed. Rinsed. Waxed. Folding chairs were brought out for the occasion. Fifteen rows of fifteen chairs on each side of the aisle. Color-coordinated pansies, impatiens, and petunias lay in long wooden boxes, painted in the University's colors, blue and yellow. Early placed the boxes across the front of the stage and then dressed the front and sides of the podium with fresh clematis vines. When he was finished, he arranged three dome-shaped birdcages made of papier-mâché and pipe cleaners between the flower boxes. Perched on a swing inside each cage was a perfectly sculpted bright blue songbird. What was possible to say about that was already in print on a banner being raised over the stage, a quote from the poet Maya Angelou: “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
Early's helpers brought in more flowers arranged in large plastic pots covered in blue and yellow foil. Early arranged two pots on each window sill and one on each side of the five double doors.
As James Brown's song, “I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing/Open The Door And I'll Get It Myself,” piped through the sound system, the workers danced up and down the aisles while they transformed the building from a finger-popping, dice-rolling, card-playing recreation gallery for thieves and murderers to a hall worthy of receiving two hundred and fifty distinguished guests and a hundred and forty-two convict graduates singing “Ain't No Stopping Us Now” as they marched across the stage to receive their diplomas.
Oliver stood outside the auditorium in Stick-Up Alley helping Mr. Ocheltree, the academic counselor, line up the graduates for the final walk-through. Whereas the morning air had been cool and sharp, by mid-afternoon the edge had worn off the sun and the day was blue and gold and exciting. As the graduates' names were called in the order they would march into the building, Oliver handed each one a slip of paper with a number written on it. “Don't lose that paper, gentlemen!” Mr. Ocheltree said. “You'll need it tonight in order to line up properly.”
Oliver noted the irony of standing in Stick-Up Alley with some of the same prisoners who had contributed to its name. Situated between the auditorium and the commissary building, Stick-Up Alley was the home of more strong-arm robberies than anywhere else in the prison. Today it was part of hallowed ground; on Monday morning it would return to being a danger zone for new arrivals coming from the canteen for the first time with bags full of groceries and cigarettes. Those with their mind on court dates and home would be candidates for a strong-arm robbery. Oliver recalled the first time he had walked out of the canteen building and down this alley with two grocery bags in the crook of one arm, a ten-penny nail held tightly in his free hand and a deadly glare in his eyes. He had certainly come a long way since then, he thought, as he smelled the hibiscus riding on the breeze through the open side-door of the auditorium. Though he was mindful that the environment he thought of as a college campus was still a hundred year old prison filled with dangerous men, it was a distinction without a difference, for beauty, harmony, color and fragrance were all around him.
And magic too, he hoped. Tonight, he would have the keynote speaker, Dr. B.J. Dallet, all to himself after the ceremony. A month ago she had sent him a handwritten note on cream-colored stationery offering him the chance of a lifetime:
Dear Mr. Priddy,
It is difficult enough under normal circumstances to earn a C.S. Award; you have done it under the most trying conditions. Congratulations!
Mr. Sommers has shared with me your interest in our School of Education's Master's program. I look forward to meeting and talking with you about this at next month's graduation.
Best wishes,
B.J. Dallet
If you were a prisoner who had just received a note on cream-colored stationery offering hope and upward mobility-well, then you taped it to the wall, telephoned all the people you loved and planned to make the impression of a lifetime. It was the most hope-filled day of his prison life the day Professor B.J. Dallet recognized his scholarship on a cream-colored note with a light fragrance. More than anything in the world, he needed this rara avis, as rare as tamarind rinds on a prison yard, for only two prisoners before him had ever attended graduate school, and that was because, one, most were as indigent as the homeless and, two, the discerning eye of graduate school professors didn't usually extend beyond the main campus. Though Senator Claiborne Pell's grant did not cover tuition fees for graduate school, with his Chancellor's Scholarship and his mother June's resources he had the financial part in tow. What he needed now was a humanitarian in need of a protege and by the end of the night he hoped to have her.
He had learned from his grandfather, Ernest Priddy, Sr., how to shake hands with just the right firmness and how to stand as straight as a plumb line. His grandfather had taught him many things. Work, save and study hard. Say grace and be it. Don't chomp into your food or the reputation of your friends. Laugh at the things that are funny and those meant to be. Look the devil in the eyes, and others, too.
He had another gift he didn't inherit from his grandfather. The charm of a lady's man. Six three and lean, with wide shoulders and thick brown hair perpetually in his face, a quick, contagious smile, and large green eyes, he was what women called a beauty. Tonight he would wear his new light blue button down dress shirt, tan slacks, and Weejun penny loafers, and hope that in his finely pressed collegiate clothes she would see not a murderer-man or a prisoner-therefore-con-man, but a where-did-he-go-wrong, man, and all-he-needs-is-a-chance, man.
HE HEARD HER high heels clicking across the tiles in the main corridor, heard her say, “Yes, this is my first time here.” He didn't turn around to look. He pulled the next cap and gown off the rack and shouted over the crisscross of conversations going on around him. “107…108!”
“Yo, Butch. I never thought I'd see the day you'd be wearing a gown.”
“Hey. Watch it, fella.”
“Come here, homeboy. You look like a real scholar. Your momma's going to be proud of you tonight.”
“Yeah, yours too.”
“Fix your hat, Leroy.”
“It's not a hat, it's a cap.”
“Whatever you call it, you can't wear it cocked all to the side like that.”
“Who says?”
“I say!” Ms. Rhoda Cherry shouted. “Now straighten that cap out! You're not going to be a jitterbug tonight, young man. That's the way. Thank you.”
Oliver handed out the last cap and gown and turned around, adjusting his eyes to the crowd. He looked over the prisoners and saw bits of Professor B.J. Dallet. Wide, watching eyes. Her smile. The other prisoners were checking her out, too. Mr. Sommers waved his hand. “Can you come here for a second, Oliver?”
He took a deep breath, smiling nervously, th
en walked across the room. As he approached her, he thought she was the tallest woman he had ever seen. Not quite his height in black pumps and high heels. She wore a royal blue suit with gold buttons. Her straight blond hair was pulled back and held together with a black ribbon. She had aqua blue eyes that were wise and familiar. She looked the way he imagined she would. Haute couture. Like one of June's girlfriends. A woman's woman, a man's woman.
“Oliver, this is Dr. B.J. Dallet. B.J., this is our scholar, Oliver Priddy.”
“It's a pleasure to meet you, Oliver,” she said, extending her hand and a firm grip. Her smile was full and confident.
“Likewise, Dr. Dallet,” said Oliver.
“Mr. Sommers has told me a lot about you,” she said.
“All good, I hope.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Oliver, make sure you get with Dr. Dallet right after the ceremony. We're going to head over to the auditorium now,” Mr. Sommers said.
“I will. I'll be waiting for you when you come off the stage, Dr. Dallet.”
Dr. Dallet said, “I'll be looking for you, Oliver.”
Twilight distilled blue into purple and reduced purple to crimson by the time all the proud and giddy graduates were lined up in Stick-Up Alley. Oliver stood at the end of the procession humming a song his brother Skip had hipped him to in high school. An R&B version of “Some Enchanted Evening,” in four-part harmony. He hummed the tune in his head until he heard the swell of “Pomp and Circumstance” echoing through the alley. Then the procession started moving forward. Oliver walked behind the last graduate in line and when he entered the auditorium he closed the double doors behind him. The room was a sea of teary-eyed mothers. A grandfather leaning on a cane. A nun smiling solemnly. Siblings. Wives. Professors. Clergy. The top brass of the administration. They were all there. Oliver stood in the back row with his fellow school workers. Father Kelly Reese said a prayer and then everyone sat in unison.
Eureka Man: A Novel Page 11
